The present invention relates generally to safety devices which are designed to assist a person in extricating or rescuing another individual from a hazardous or potentially hazardous situation. In particular, the rescue device should be designed so that its utilization, during the rescue attempt, will not result in the party attempting the rescue also being exposed to the hazard.
As a result of the ever increasing and expanding wealth of technical knowledge and the various and sundry areas in which this knowledge is applied, people have been thrust into numerous situations in which they could, through accident, be exposed to a hazardous agent or agents. Exemplary hazardous agents to which an individual may be exposed at almost any time, and especially during work, are electricity and caustic, poisonous or other chemical agents. The problem of protecting individuals from exposure to certain hazardous agents has long been recognized by those in the art. In this regard the work tools of those whose work environment presents a higher than average risk of being subjected to such hazardous agents have been designed to minimize such risks. For example, work tools which will, in all likelihood, be utilized around or near to a highly hazardous electrical current have been designed to electrically insulate the user from the hazardous current. A tool of this sort is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,997,529 to Fink. The Fink patent generally discloses an electrically insulating rod and a method for manufacturing the rod. It is stated that the rod may be used to construct a lineman's pole having high dielectric strength and resistance of flash-over, low moisture absorption, satisfactory heat distortion temperature and superior weathering properties.
Unfortunately, despite utilization of the best available equipment and implementation of good safety procedures accidents can and do happen. In this regard, as a result of an accident, it is not unusual for one or more individuals to be located in a hazardous situation where their rescue could expose the person attempting the rescue to the hazardous agent. For example, the exposed person may be located in an area of chemical contamination or the exposed person may have come into contact with an electrical field or electrical current from which they are unable to remove themselves. In such situations it might be highly hazardous for the person attempting the rescue to even touch the exposed individual since such contact could well also expose the rescuing individual to the hazard. Accordingly, a strong and continuing need has arisen for an apparatus which will allow the person attempting to rescue the endangered individual to effect the rescue from a position of safety while being protected from exposure to the hazard which is present.